


Reindeer Games

by ArcticLucie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, M/M, prison era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5396819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcticLucie/pseuds/ArcticLucie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick drags Daryl out to get a Christmas tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reindeer Games

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays!

“Why we doin’ this again?” Daryl grumbled, rubbing his hands together in attempt to warm them. 

“The kids, Daryl,” Rick said, looking up at him from where he was kneeling in the frozen grass, hand wrapped around the handle of a hatchet. “And the rest of us. The world is shit now an’ I think we deserve a little reminder of how things used ta be from time ta time. You disagree?”

He didn’t.

Daryl was indifferent to Christmas. When he was growing up, it was just another day, and that didn’t change when he hit adulthood. The only thing good about this time of year was that his father, despite the asshole’s mountain of flaws, tended to be more lenient and less of a dick. He never knew why and didn’t question it, chalking most of it up to the holiday spirit or the Christmas miracles that everyone was always going on and on about.

They didn’t really celebrate though, not when most of their spending money went towards beer and cigarettes. A carton shoved in a couple of old socks Merle hung up for them were about as good as it got. The one time he and Merle managed to get a tree ended in disaster when they came home from school—or skipping in Merle’s case—the next day to find it hacked to pieces and stacked up to be used as firewood. At least they weren’t as cold that year.

But Rick had insisted on them finding a tree.

And not just any tree, but the _perfect_ tree.

So Rick woke him before the ass crack of dawn and they snuck out of the gates before the sun had broken the horizon to traipse through the woods until they found one. 

It took about an hour to find, but now he was standing there keeping watch while Rick worked. He could see every breath they exhaled and feel the cold oozing into his bones. The ground was still blanketed with ice crystals and Rick was ethereal set against the shimmering backdrop as he chopped away on the trunk of an eight foot evergreen.

Daryl had only agreed to come along so he could spend some quiet time with him. There were too many eyes back at the prison. Walls were thin despite the fact they were made of concrete—echoes were a bitch—and even though nothing had happened between them yet, he hoped it was only a matter of time.

“Fine, chop down yer damn tree, Paul Bunyan. But it’s a crime against nature,” Daryl huffed, kicking at the dirt with his boot.

“So’s that sweater,” Rick replied, pausing only long enough to shoot him a cheeky smile.

Daryl couldn’t dispute that fact because whoever thought it was a good idea to make a sweater with a picture of Santa taking a shit on the toilet was flat out wrong. And whoever thought it was a good idea to buy one was an idiot. He only grabbed it because it was one of the only one’s left, and it was getting ridiculously cold. That plus he knew it was something Merle would’ve liked.

Rick stopped again, most likely sensing the change in his demeanor as old demons rushed in. He looked up, icy blue eyes open and warm, as he waited for Daryl to speak if he needed to. He didn’t. Instead, he gave a jerky shake of his head, to which Rick replied with a nod before continuing his task and adding in the humming a Christmas song Daryl couldn’t quite remember.

Once the tree was cut down, they began the trek back, one on either side of the baby juniper they hauled behind them. They were a good ten minutes out from the prison when Daryl suddenly dropped the tree, swinging around his bow and turning the crosshairs on a sluggish walker closing in.

They were slowed by the cold, but Daryl wasn’t willing to take any chances. He squeezed the trigger just as a few of its friends came into view, the bolt going right through its eye socket and stopping it in its tracks. He turned to look at Rick who gave him a nod, and then they were both slinking forward as they unsheathed their knives.

Together they took out seven of them before the area was clear. It didn’t take much effort thanks to their lethargic movements, but Rick had spent a good twenty minutes hacking through the trunk before he got the tree down and looked like he needed some time to rest. Daryl didn’t mind dragging out their excursion a little longer, if he were being honest.

Daryl’s eyes swept the perimeter once more before he turned his attention back to Rick who had took to leaning against a big oak. His head was thrown back, eyes squinting like he did when he was studying something, and Daryl’s eyes zeroed in on the milky flesh between his beard and the collar of his jacket. He wanted so bad to taste it, to run his tongue up the hollow of that neck, but after he had his moment to drink him in—that square jaw and lips pinker than usual in the frosty morning air—he followed Rick’s gaze into the treetops. 

A low laugh escaped him when he recognized the green patch of foliage hanging high in the barren limbs.

“What is it?” Rick asked.

Daryl met his eyes as he stalked towards him, one side of his mouth quirking into a pretty smug grin, which Rick must’ve liked, he’d wager, if the way his pupils blew were any indication.

“Well, well, well, Father Christmas. ‘M shocked ya don’t know mistletoe when ya see it.”

Rick’s eyebrows rose before his mouth twisted up into an impish smile. “Tis the season, right?”

His eyes fell to Rick’s lips and followed the tip of his tongue when it flickered out to wet them. He let himself be tugged forward until they were touching from thigh to sternum, Rick’s thumbs tunneling under his layers till they found the skin of his hips; he shivered. They hadn’t been this close in a while and certainly not without their lives being on the line.

“With the world the way it is...we ain’t got time for playin’ games,” Daryl said before sucking in his bottom lip to gnaw at the flesh.

And maybe that was his way of asking if it was all real, if Rick really wanted him, because while he was mostly sure that the signs were there, he needed a little more assurance than the way his gut would twist when Rick looked at him or the way his touch lingered long after the source had been stripped away. He needed to know Rick felt it too.

“Not even reindeer ones?” Rick smirked.

“Dammit, Rick,” Daryl chided, and moved to pull away.

But Rick tightened his fingers in Daryl’s sweater as his smile fell away. “You’re right, no games. Not for this ‘cause I want ya, been wantin’ ya for awhile, longer than I can remember even, and I don’t really wanna wait anymore.”

“It’d help if ya’d shut the hell up for five minutes an’ follow tradition.”

That seemed to get his point across because then there were fingers carding through his hair and tender lips pressed to his. His heart was pounding away in his chest like the little drummer boy and his cheeks might as well have been roasting over an open fire, but he didn’t care. He’d gladly burn away a thousand times for this, for Rick, for the way their lips were moving in sync just like their bodies always have.

It was so fucking cliché but the only thing he wanted for Christmas was this right here: Rick’s hands on him as they fused together while the forest around them thawed.

“If that’s all it took ta get a kiss, I woulda found some mistletoe months ago,” Rick chuckled when they broke apart.

“Nah, Rick. ‘S poisonous. Last thing we need is Lil’ Asskicker gettin’ ahold of it.”

Then Rick was kissing him again, kissing him until he couldn’t breathe, but he was used to feeling that way around him, dizzy and slightly off kilter like his chest was filled with something that restricted his lungs’ capacity to expand, something he wasn’t quite ready to think about yet.

Eventually, they made it back home with their sturdy tree in hand. Everyone was excited when it was up and decorated with ornaments and tinsel they’d found in a nearby farmhouse. He still didn’t care about all the pomp and circumstance, but as he stood there holding Judith on his hip, his shoulder pressing into Rick’s, and their family’s eyes all watching Beth and Carl put on the star, he had to concede that some of those reindeer games weren’t so bad after all.


End file.
